Was Lord Of The Rings a One-Off? Part-1
-Will we ever get another Lord Of The Rings?-
Back to Middle-Earth (Again)
With the new Rings Of Power Amazon original just around the corner and all the controversy surrounding some of the creative liberties taken, I thought it would be a good time to take a look back at the Peter Jackson trilogy to see what made them so memorable and why I’m not sure anyone could ever recreate the perfect storm that helped to make them what they are. After all, they were not without their own controversies regarding how accurate and true to Tolkien’s original works they were. From the use of a relatively untested director and the unrealistically enormous budget he was given, there was a lot riding on these movies to succeed and succeed they did, cementing themselves as some of the greatest movies of modern cinema. The number of breakthroughs made in the process of making these films have had long lasting effects on the industry and have changed the way large scale movies are made all the way up to today. So let’s have a look at the struggles, failures and triumphs of this legendary franchise and in part two, we’ll see whether the other cinematic ventures into middle-earth have lived up to this trilogy or if they may have missed the mark.
When talking about entertainment, you shouldn’t always cut out subjectivity completely. After all, movies can have drastic and lasting effects on a person and it would be foolish to ignore that. Especially when it can be an effect shared and experienced by many. It is the whole point of film to try and connect with the audience as much as possible (from the point of view of the artists behind it, that is), so if a movie succeeds in that, then in my opinion, that’s a good movie. The more a movie can have that effect, the better. This fact should always be considered when discussing movies, even when pointing out the objective strengths and weaknesses. For example, don’t mistake my remarks on the Marvel Cinematic Universe (MCU) as disdain. I thoroughly enjoy those movies and they seem to have connected with a bigger audience than anything that has come before, but from a more objective point of view, they took few risks and stuck to a well developed formula. On the other hand, Lord Of The Rings (LOTR) took risks and huge strides were made in the process of developing these movies. My personal connection to them is probably related to a sense of nostalgia due to me being a wee nipper at the time, but I also recently showed these movies to someone who had zero interest in the genre and even they couldn’t help but find themselves wanting to watch the whole trilogy again almost straight away. Just like other mediums, movies go beyond . So just to be sure, I thought that I’d add this disclaimer here to let your know that I am under no illusions regarding the objectivity of this article. Now sit back and enjoy the read!
A Shot In The Dark
3 films shot simultaneously, 8 years of total production and a $280 million budget. A director who had never helmed a project that was even close to this kind of scale. A genre that had never been explored in such a huge way. It sounds like a potential recipe for disaster, but take the insane dedication, commitment and outside-the-box thinking of the crew behind it as well as the vision and imagination of Peter Jackson himself, sprinkle in some world-class acting and not only do you avert disaster, you leave a mark in the film industry not seen since George Lucas made that movie about the space cowboys and that guy with really bad asthma. What I’m trying to say is: The odds were stacked against them, jobs were on the line and failure would have meant no-one touching the genre for the foreseeable future, but we got more than anyone could have expected. I believe the phrase “lightning in a bottle” is a great way to describe what happened here and I’m not sure I can think of another franchise that has ever matched the ambition of LOTR since then. Perhaps the MCU can be seen as a contender, but so much of that franchise is built on the breakthroughs and technological advances made during the production of LOTR and other previous major franchises. Not to mention the generally formulaic approach to churning out these fairly safe products that take very few risks, barring a few stand-out specimens.
A rocky start
Let me set the scene! It’s 1978, a young Peter Jackson, having seen the animated adaptation of the first half of Lord Of The Rings, is both bewildered and enamoured with the story telling, with certain parts of the plot being a bit muddled. He takes it upon himself to read into this mystical world and it finds a place in his heart. He even moves onto The Hobbit and the slightly lesser known Silmarillion, a prequel book made of Tolkiens notes, written in the form of a sort of history book recounting ancient tales of the origins of middle-earth and a struggle over the Silmarils, the name given to some specially crafted gems that carried the remains of a dead legacy. He had a strong belief in the fact that these stories would one day be shown on the big screen in all their glory, who could have predicated how right he was. Years come and go along with various adaptations and attempts to recreate the fantasy in a new world, all the way up until 1995.
In 1995, Jackson was just coming off the back of his previous movie, The Frighteners. He was looking to make a brand new fantasy movie with Fran Walsh, but always ended up coming back round to Tolkien. So, they decided to roll with it and looked to making Tolkien’s works into movies. Originally approaching Miramax with the idea for one trilogy to encompass both ‘The Hobbit’ and ‘The Lord Of The Rings’ but only being able to secure the rights to the latter, Jackson eventually moved to New Line cinema after The Weinsteins tried replacing him as he refused to cut the movies down to one 2 hour feature. After settling at New Line, who requested that it be took a step further and be expanded into a full trilogy with a hefty $60 million budget per film (a budget that was later expanded again after a rather successful screening of ‘The Fellowship Of The Ring’ at the Cannes film festival), Jackson was finally able to move on with the project. Alongside WETA digital and WETA Workshop who designed the props and artwork to later be used.
All coming together
After 2 years of haggling and dealing and laying the original ground work, the trilogy finally began to get into full swing. This is where changes to the original texts began to creep in. To allow for easier watching, some parts and people were cut, added or moved around the story to make it fit a more clear and straight forward form of storytelling often needed in film. These revisions of the script continued all the way through production as a result of contributions from the cast and crew. However, they also took care to try and keep important lines and scenes exactly the same as the books. Wanting to avoid the super fantastical style of previous movies like ‘Labyrinth’ Jackson tried following a more realistic approach to the world design. After all, Tolkien wrote these novels as if they were a forgotten chapter in English history. So inspiration was taken from more historical movies. Jackson has been noted saying that Braveheart was chief among these inspirations. Trying to stay as consistent in his film making and adhere to the fact that ‘The Lord Of The Rings’ was originally meant to be one story until a certain World War upset the writing process resulting in the trilogy we have today, Jackson and his crew resolved to shoot all of the movies in one go. Something requiring years of preparation and more years of dedicated shooting, topped off with revolutionary special effects.
Movie magic
The special effects are a whole wonder in their own right. From developing the largest and most detailed miniatures of all time. The miniatures used for so many of the back drops were affectionately named bigatures due to their huge scale and level of detail, this added a real grounded feel to the scenes as you can tell that the beautiful and fantastical locations weren’t simply green screens and CGI, they were real and there. Digital effects were just usedhere to scale them appropriately to the size needed. Even The Shire was created for real and almost all the shooting was done on location with all the scenic splendour of the New Zealand mountains. Even the scenes of Orcs forging their weapons and armour were just made up of footage of the actual on set blacksmiths designing and building the set weapons and armour in a real workshop, whilst wearing Orc makeup and armour. Then the fact that the sets were designed in such a way to allow two full sized adults to be in a scene talking face to face while using forced perspective to create a size difference with absolutely zero need for digital interference. Everything in these movies feels so believable and realistic because in all honesty, they are real. That isn’t to say the digital elements weren’t also in a class of their own. Certain technological leaps made in these movies have since been used to build so much of today’s digital effects. One breakthrough being the creation of MASSIVE, an AI based software that can be used to realistically create and simulate crowds of people and has since been modified to be used on other things like the dense jungle floor of Pandora in Avatar. However, possibly the most mind blowing leap in digital VFX came from bringing Gollum to life through the use of motion capture. The VFX used still holds up today and stands as one of the most important technological breakthroughs in the industry. The effort made here mixed with the talent of Andy Serkis made Gollum seem like a real and believable creature, the same team and tech was even used in bringing Thanos to life in Marvels Avengers.
A Perfect Storm
So there you have it! Forged in the heart of a perfect storm. So many moving parts came together to make these movies truly legendary:
1. It’s placement in time, between the late 90s and early 00s meant they were at the forefront of a digital revolution in the movie making industry, but at a time where practical effects were still heavily used, allowing the team behind this trilogy to pick and choose whichever tools suited their needs best. It was also before movies started trying to be as reproducible as possible like the MCU. Allowing the team to have the freedom to make the movie they envisioned without interference.
2. A group of the most talented actors of the time, from experienced Thespians to the younger, less-known new blood and everything in-between.
3. Probably the most dedicated and imaginative crew and a visionary director with the skill and passion to push for what he knew was needed to build a world worthy of the source material.
4. A production company willing to take a risk on something that was not guaranteed to produce the return needed to justify it.
5. The original works conjured in the great mind of Tolkien providing the beautiful world to be used as a backdrop for a unique and rich story.
This mixture of elements is why I believe it would be near impossible to recreate something on this scale that could successfully achieve anything close to what this trilogy did. It took too many risks that paid off simply as a result of the talent behind the movie and their determination to make something worthy of the source material. I don’t believe it could be easily recreated going forward, as the industry has moved on since then and found methods that are far more lucrative and fitting for a modern audience with an ever-shortening attention-span. Movies will more likely try to follow the Marvel handbook to creating franchises, in which a formula dedicated to maximising profits by churning out one movie after another is used, strict oversight from the higher-ups is maintained and venturing too far from the path of least resistance is strongly discouraged. Leaving all the creative control to one group with a strong vision will become a dying practice, lost to the past. It doesn’t make much sense from a business perspective to do that these days. However, it could be that I am completely wrong, maybe lightning can strike twice, so check out the second half of this post here, where we talk about the new, upcoming Amazon show to see how it might compare to it’s predecessors, as well as having a quick look at why The Hobbit didn’t quite manage to live up to the legend despite having a lot of the same elements at play.